


Okay

by ficteer



Category: Ookiku Furikabutte | Big Windup!
Genre: First Kiss, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-08
Updated: 2014-09-08
Packaged: 2018-02-16 16:52:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2277411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ficteer/pseuds/ficteer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The second injury of Abe Takaya’s baseball career is, ironically, incurred nowhere while he is playing baseball.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Okay

The second injury of Abe Takaya’s baseball career is, ironically, incurred nowhere while he is playing baseball. He’s not even paying attention to the light bit of baseball occurring in front of him, partly because it’s just his little brother playing catch with their dad, but mostly because his interests were heavily devoted to the phone in his hand. Or rather, the person on the other end of the texts he was sending out, because Mihashi Ren was a lot of things but a good texter was not very high on that list. Any day Abe got a conversation going was a good one, but this one felt particularly valuable as it had nothing to do with baseball. It was a normal conversation between two high school boys - or, at least, as normal as he suspects conversations are between two high school boys.

And so it is that Abe, while not even playing baseball, not even talking about baseball, not even _thinking_ about baseball, takes a missed pitch to the stomach for the first time since he and Haruna parted ways. It hurts in a way he’d forgotten, hand pressing hard to the area to stem the pain before it comes out in a furious roar to his brother to control his pitching better. Shun shouts back (“If Taka would just let Mihashi-san teach me I would be better already!”), but their mother breaks up the argument by threatening dinner if they don’t pipe down.

That night, Abe stands in front of the mirror and sees an angry purple mark on his body for the first time in years. Closing his eyes, he thinks of gold and a rare smile, and bites down hard on his toothbrush in unspoken gratitude.

\----------

Shun is not Haruna, and so the bruise is forgotten by the next morning. There’s a slight twinge when he lifts his arms up to put his shirt on that reminds him of his injury, but a harder-than-usual ruffle of his little brother’s hair at the breakfast table and a stolen bite of his eggs make Abe feel better. He rides his bike to the baseball field, changes into his uniform, and grabs a rake to begin early morning maintenance. 

The sun comes a few minutes later, or at least that’s what it feels like when warmth and light are introduced only when Mihashi bumbles in through the gate, mumbling an unintelligible good morning greeting that’s muffled by a hand covering a yawn. He perks up as soon as Tajima winds an arm around his neck, and Abe’s stiff frustration is echoed by Hanai’s next to him. “How can they be so exhausting this early in the morning?!” Hanai seethes, dragging a hand over his face before spinning on his heel to gather everyone for their morning meditation.

Practice is as everyday as Abe prefers it to be. Mihashi is still toying around with the number of steps in his windup, still working on getting his control back to the precision it had earlier, but they’re as in sync as ever. They’re never as close as when they’re separated by eighteen and a half meters of dust and hot air. Once, Abe lets himself close his eyes, trusting that placement and being rewarded with the sweet sound of Mihashi’s curveball hitting the center of his palm. The impact vibrates up his arm and resounds through his whole body that leaves him shivering with delight.

The day drags on into an afternoon as hot and humid as any other, and finally comes to a close with rice balls and loud chattering. It’s not until Abe feels a light brush on his palm that he realizes that he’d slung his arm over the back of the bench where Mihashi’s sitting. He tenses up a bit, pausing with the rice ball heavy in his mouth as he wonders just how much he touches Mihashi without even thinking about it. Just when he feels his stomach churn nervously because shouldn’t he move his arm??, Mihashi turns his attention away from Tajima and blinks up into his face.

“Are you okay?” he asks, leaning in a bit so that his shoulder brushes the corner of Abe’s arm and chest. There’s no way he can’t know about the arm behind him, but he seems quite at home with the closeness. Feeling particularly brave, Abe swallows the rice slowly and lets his arm slip from the back of the bench to Mihashi’s shoulders. His eyes lock with golden hazel, sharp for any sign of discontent, but instead all he sees is a blossom of happiness and an almost imperceptibly upwards curl of Mihashi’s lips. Abe feels a smile echo on his own face as he tells Mihashi he’s fine, fingers curling around the shoulder that connected them and clutching it with every ounce of fondness weighing in his chest.

It’s with this warmth in every crevice of his skin that he follows the rest of the team into the showers, stripping off his jersey and then pulling his undershirt over his head with a breath of relief to be out of the sweaty clothing. He folds them and puts them down next to his bag, then the rest of his clothing, and pads into the showers. Tajima’s trying to start a rat-tail contest again, but considering the nice welt he’d left on Oki’s thigh the last time, it’ll be no time at all before Hanai shuts that down.

The shower feels good, and being clean feels really good. Nothing was quite as satisfying as ending a grueling practice with a hot shower, and he finds himself in a good mood as he goes back to his locker to get dressed. He pulls on his boxers and pants, but as he goes to reach for his shirt, he freezes when he sees Mihashi standing next to him like someone was murdered in front of him. The expression on his face of paleness and horror in his eyes twists Abe’s guts almost to the point of physical pain. 

Before Abe can ask him what’s wrong, Mihashi’s hand lifts and fingers brush at the skin on his side. Abe pulls his stare from Mihashi’s horrified face, trails down his arm, and sees Mihashi’s fingers feather-soft on the bruise from the previous afternoon. It’s obviously from a baseball, the shape and size perfect, and Abe feels the worry slide out of his system in a rush so fast it almost makes him dizzy.

“Oh, that? That was - “ he begins, but Mihashi’s voice cuts in, sharp and so quiet it fills Abe’s ears with clanging.

“I hurt… Abe-kun,” he says, and Abe is so confused for a moment that he is as stiff and unresponsive to the horseplay around them as Mihashi is. Abe blinks, and then understanding, and a need to comfort so intense he’s moving before the thought is solid in his mind. 

Abe’s hands are hot against the ice that is Mihashi’s jaw, and he wills every degree of warmth in his body to transfer to the quivering boy in his grasp. He looks too mortified to cry, Abe thinks, a tender claw clutching his heart and sinking in its ragged edges. “Mihashi, look at me,” he murmurs, grip tightening and frown deepening when those golden green eyes stare pointedly at Abe’s chin instead. “ _Mihashi_.” He’s pulling to get away, to shrink in on himself, to disappear into the dark thoughts Abe can see dancing on the eyelashes he can count from this distance as the pitcher clenches his eyes shut, but Abe grits his teeth and increases his volume just enough to startle, knows he needs to shock Mihashi out of his thoughts and bring him back. “Ren!”

It works. Mihashi’s eyes fly open, now glittering with tears, now meeting Abe’s with volumes of uncertainty. Abe lets his hold relax by a fraction, returning to his original aim to comfort, not contain. “You didn’t do that. It was Shun, yesterday.”

“Sh…. Shun-kun….” Mihashi repeats, lips quivering. Abe nods slightly, eyes watching every step of Mihashi’s breakdown as it happens. His eyes close, tears finally leaking out, his weight swaying forward until his forehead is pressed against Abe’s shoulder. Abe holds him, locking gazes with an inquisitive Tajima as Mihashi sobs into his skin and clutches his shoulder blades. Abe looks to Hanai, an unspoken command between them, and Hanai grips Tajima’s shoulder to lead the slow trickle of their teammates out. Abe exhales, relieved that he can handle Mihashi without having to worry about the others, and also distantly wondering when it had shifted from a burden to a pleasure.

He waits for Mihashi to finish crying, feels the sobs die into hiccups and then muted waves of emotion chased by a shudder or two. When he finally pulls back, his face is red and his eyes are puffy, but it’s a vast improvement over the expression earlier that had Abe’s heart stopped in his chest. 

“I-I thought… I never w-want… hurt… “ Mihashi splutters, pressing his palms to his eyes. Abe reached up and gently pulled Mihashi’s hands out of his face, resting his forehead against Mihashi’s and rubbing soothing circles in the wrists beneath his thumbs.

“Mihashi, you didn’t hurt me. Even if you did, I wouldn’t be mad. It’s normal to get hurt a little bit like this, so stop crying.” He watches Mihashi’s eyes open, meeting his, and he gives a comforting smile that he hopes will earn him a glimpse of Mihashi’s stunning smile and a nod to conclude another successful communication. He waits for it, but watches as Mihashi swallows, licking his lips nervously.

“You didn’t use… my name,” he says, causing Abe to still. “Earlier, you…”

There’s no way Mihashi doesn’t _feel_ the heat on Abe’s face, not from this distance. He straightens his spine and pulls away from Mihashi, struggling between releasing his hold on Mihashi and putting his hands in his pockets. He wants to explain his reasoning, wants to use some excuse, but as he looks back at Mihashi and sees the angle of his lips and the exact dilation of his eyes, he remembers what happened earlier in the dugout with his arm, remembers practice when he closed his eyes, remembers how good it feels to put all of his trust in Mihashi.

“Is it… okay?” he mumbles, and the resulting nod Mihashi gives him would probably rip the head off a lesser human. Abe is sure he has more to say, could have sworn there was something else, but at that moment Mihashi tilts his head and _smiles_ , that smile that caused every process in his body to skip a beat, that smile that had him shivering because he never knew how cold he was until he felt that warmth, that smile that made him want to cry for the privilege of getting to see it.

And then, as if that wasn’t enough, as if he wasn’t already absolutely _ruined_ by Mihashi Ren, he watches as the pitcher gets taller - what, no, that doesn’t make sense, he must be on his tip-toes - and there’s a rush of breath against his lips and then he whites out because he’s kissing the sun, the sun is kissing him, and he’s aware of every dip of Mihashi’s tongue curling around his lips, every excited shiver beneath the fingers he’s tracing up Mihashi’s spine, every soft breath that tastes like rice and lemon water. He groans into Mihashi’s mouth and knows the moment Mihashi quivers at his taste, because there’s no one else who would curl Abe’s hair around their fingers and shudder in delight like this. It’s only an afterthought that they’re both shirtless, only after they part to remember that they were two separate people after all that Abe feels the shifting skin against his own, only as he exchanges pant for pant against tingling lips, tracing delighted fingertips down Mihashi’s sides and feeling the pitcher’s whimper before he hears it.

Abe is the one who reminds them of their homework and need to get home, that the others are probably worried and Tajima especially would be expecting a text from Mihashi to know what had happened. Abe is the one who pulls on his shirt (but not before pressing a thankful touch into the bruise on his side and making a mental note to let his brother finish all of his eggs tomorrow morning) while Mihashi pulls out his phone and texts Tajima. Mihashi’s phone tweets not two seconds later, revealing that Tajima had indeed been sitting with his phone in his hands, absolutely _ravenous_ for details, and Abe is the one who laughs at Mihashi’s cherry-red face.

“Is… okay?” Mihashi asks, voice unsure as he hands Abe his phone. Abe takes it, reads the messages, and feels his face warm too. He closes his eyes and smiles, then opens them again, putting Mihashi’s phone back where it belonged before extending his hand.  Chirping with delight, Mihashi threads their fingers together, and they leave the baseball diamond for what would hopefully become a typical end to today’s particularly unusual practice.

\----------

[From: Mihashi Ren]

[Subject: About Earlier]

[Takaya’s brother gave him a bruise but

I thought it was me so I was sad. Everything’s okay.]

 

 

[From: Tajima Yuuichirou]

[Subject:  re:About Earlier ]

[“takaya”??? ok you me & details @ the batting 

cages tomorrow NO GETTING OUT OF JAIL FREE]

**Author's Note:**

> this was going to be smut but abe can't even kiss mihashi without crying, apparently. what a weenie


End file.
